Bluewater Health bookkeepers have a $450,000 surplus penciled in for the hospital group’s year end March 31, but that could shrink or disappear as hospitals in Sarnia and Petrolia remain crammed with more people than beds.

“That projection was done in December and we hadn’t seen what we’ve been experiencing the last few weeks,” said CEO Mike Lapaine.

“So that’s apt to change.”

Since early January people with flu, respiratory illness, mental illness and other ailments have been packing the emergency rooms in Sarnia and Petrolia – and elsewhere in the province.

Extra beds opened up in Sarnia in November – after Health Ministry funding for an extra 10 beds at Bluewater Health kicked in for “surge” season – to deal with an uptick in mental health demand.

For the past week and a half at least, said Laurie Zimmer, Bluewater Health’s vice-president of operations, an extra 20 hospital beds, over and above the normal 300 in Sarnia, have been full.

Meanwhile emergency wait times have lagged.

At one point last week there 23 admitted patients waiting in the emergency room for beds elsewhere in hospital to open up, said Lapaine.

“There have been several not great days, but that one stands out in my memory as probably record setting.”

Wednesday evening, he said, there were nine stuck in that limbo.

“If you’re acutely ill you shouldn’t be sitting in the emergency department, for several reasons,” he said. “We need to get them upstairs; but when you’re overbedded, there’s just no space.”

Illness outbreaks at nursing homes have also slowed how quickly residents of those homes can leave hospital, he said.

“All parts of the system are kind of – it’s a perfect storm.”

Staff in Petrolia are also above capacity – staffing 19 beds, he said, at the community’s Charlotte Eleanor Englehart Hospital (CEEH). They have funding for 18.

“Staff are maxed out,” he said, commending them for their hard work.

There’s no other option, he said, calling the scale of this winter surge – it’s typical for hospital demand to increase this time of year – unprecedented.

“There’s only so much the staff will be able to withstand until the staff get sick,” he said.

The patients showing up are “acutely ill” and need hospital services, he said.

The surge funding the Health Ministry provided in the fall also covered an extra 20 beds at Windsor Regional, and another 24 for wherever there’s a need.

Both Windsor campuses this week have also been above 100 per cent capacity.

The funding lasts until the end of March.

Meanwhile, Bluewater Health announced another potential hit to its pocketbook Wednesday – a projected $2.8-million deficit for the April 2018-March 2019 fiscal year.